Three Foundational Disciplines

By: Ron Lagerquist

Solitude, Contentment, and living With Purpose

Dreams are seeds buried deep within the soul, the giant tree potential awaiting to take root and grow, bearing the fruit of talents and special gifts unique to you. Yet fulfilled dreams must be cultivated, watered and pruned throughout the daily grind of living. Dreaming is not enough. We all love to dream. It’s the fun stuff, theone day, pie in the sky—waiting for an outside event that will change things. When I’m finished school, once I’m married, as soon as I get through this tuff period in my life, I am nearly done this job and then. . . and it never comes because there will always be something blocking you from striking out. And the world provides ample distractions filling up those quite spaces between doing and so we do not have to face the emptiness of a fruitless life.

So how does change start? How can we begin to reinvent ourselves into the heart dream for which we were born?

Genuine change must be birthed in recognition and remorse. Recognition of how much we have bargained away precious dreams for fool’s gold. Remorse over years of compromise to God and ourselves. Both recognition and remorse are painful and we have learned to avoid them. Yet to properly experience recognition and remorse there needs to be quiet time away from props and people.

It is never easy to shift into neutral, slow down and turn off the adrenal rush of daily survival. Speed is addictive; motion feels good, faster computer, newer car, bigger house, better job. Wind feels pleasant against the face, however rushing here and there does not mean we are moving forward. In honesty, like a caged animal, most of us are going in circles, running away from disturbing recognition and the eventuality of remorse.

The first two disciplines we are going to discuss involve, stop and take stock time. The inward desert journey to a barren soul, famished with frivolous and wasteful living. The last discipline is about change.